


call it peace

by simaetha



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Time Loop, and is not recommended by the author, classic fannish plot cliches, playing xanatos speed chess with sauron may be psychologically damaging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3998116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simaetha/pseuds/simaetha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celebrimbor dies. Then he wakes up again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	call it peace

You die alone with your enemy, and in pain, and with nothing left to you but the faint hope of a secret, trapped on your lips.

(If it was _worth it_ \- if all that suffering, the city in ruins, your people dying in its rubble, your own broken body - if all that was _necessary_ for some later effort, the slim ring of gold that was your enemy's power slipped onto a mortal finger and dissolved into baseless heat -

You have no way of knowing this. You died alone and afraid and in a city overrun by foreign armies, and very close to despair.)

So when you wake up in Ost-in-Edhil, clean and renewed, and sob with relief, not quite - only half believing -

_Foresight_ , you say to Galadriel, _it can't have been anything else_ -

You don't quite have the courage or certainty to say, _this is our greatest enemy remaining, he killed your brother, I know exactly who this is_.

But you do say, when the stranger comes to your city, _yes, Elrond and Gil-galad were right to mistrust, we know not all of Morgoth's servants were captured in the War_ -

No one _likes_ to be so suspicious. But you have won enough trust, in your time here, that when you and Galadriel both speak against him together, no eloquent words or scattered hints at hidden knowledge will win your enemy what he seeks.

You watch him depart, pleasant disappointment barely concealing humiliated rage, and -

_We can build something better, here_ , Galadriel says; and for a time, you do. You have all the pleasure, again, of your long collaboration with Narvi, this time begun anew. You make the city lovelier than ever. Galadriel rules wisely and well.

You - can't bear to make the Rings again, not when you know the shadow that fell over them. You turn your hands to other projects, work you never found time for in your previous life (a dream, a premonition, no matter that the knowledge is _there_ and true).

But a darkness still rises in the East, faster than before, and if your enemy does not, this time, have _your_ talents at his disposal, still he has his own ingenuity, and long experience at war -

You are not prepared, and your enemy is _angry_ , this time, and though you die a better death than before, sword in your hand, you still _die_ , after living to see your city fall -

You are less surprised, when you wake again.

***

_Foresight_ , you still think, but you've never heard of foresight so lengthy and detailed and clear -

This time you know that simply casting out the enemy is not enough. You don't say, _seize him_ , when you have no way to hold even a lesser Power, but you speak of _weapons_ and _defences_ and when Celeborn advocates for more warriors and higher walls, you stand beside him and agree.

Your friendship with Narvi is cooler, this time; you forge more swords than jewels.

You die again, and faster, your enemy realising the threat.

***

You try honesty, unbelievable as it is.

It turns out that being thought mad is of no assistance whatsoever, and intensely unpleasant, besides.

***

You make the Three. You make them before you should be able to; you claim _inspiration_ and see the wary startled look in your friends' eyes. It's a long time since anyone compared you to your grandfather; but you hear the name _Fëanor_ whispered again in the halls of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain.

You have a clear advantage, for once. You - drew on your enemy's teachings, to make the Three; but they were always yours more than his; and _he_ has no idea of _your_ inventions. Together with Galadriel, you render Ost-in-Edhil unassailable.

Your enemy changes his plans. Lórinand falls first, this time, and Elrond and Gil-galad in the north; and the Three can hold your defences but not break the siege. Without Gil-galad, Númenor refuses to intervene; and eventually battle becomes no more fearful than the alternative -

***

The next time - you are becoming accustomed to the idea of _next time_ \- you disperse the Three sooner, trying to protect your allies; but their use reveals them to him, and you feel hot sick fury at the sight of Vilya on your enemy's hand in the next battle.

You die. You keep dying, and -

***

You learn more each time, tactics, your enemy's forces, innovations that the Gwaith-i-Mírdain will discover over the course of centuries and _you_ can use, wishing you could give your friends more of the credit, thinking _it's worth it, they would all agree, if it lets us defeat him in the end_.

Your enemy _changes_ his plans, unpredictably, and you can't always tell what you did to prompt the difference. You can make the Three, you can make rings and swords and jewels, but your enemy is ancient and clever and cruel, and of the race of Powers that existed before the world, and -

When Galadriel slides each of Narya and Nenya and Vilya onto her fingers and duels your enemy, bright and lovely and searingly powerful as Lúthien herself must once have stood before another, the walls of Ost-in-Edhil shake and the world reels and the sky itself resonates; but whether she's winning or not, she isn't winning _fast enough_ , and this is a battle of armies rather than single combat -

You die too early to know how it ends, but either way, Ost-in-Edhil is chaos and rubble.

***

Finally, after that, you tell Galadriel alone all of the truth, half-hoping that you _are_ mad, almost not caring if she believes you; but the _relief_ when finally she does leaves you weak and shaking as you lean your head against her shoulder; and she _can_ use the knowledge better than you, she was always a better commander.

It takes a long effort of diplomacy, frankly puzzling the Gwaith-i-Mírdain at the outset, and almost offending Gil-galad; but this time Númenor enters the war early, and half of Eriador is overrun by the long battles between the Númenóreans and Mordor.

It's so _close_. Together with Númenor, you have the forces to match your enemy at last, and with the Three (you've started _improving_ the designs now, refocusing them so that even if their healing powers are lessened their use as instruments of war is much improved) you have the beginnings of a counter to your enemy's own power -

Your enemy is _vicious_ when approaching defeat; and with your own role become so prominent ( _Fëanor come again_ , you hear the whispers, and you _hate_ it but there doesn't seem to be any way to make it stop) and Galadriel as ruler of your city, it's Ost-in-Edhil he seeks most to _break_ , at least, if he cannot take it whole.

Half of Eriador is razed to wasteland, in the end, and you can _see_ victory close at hand, but - this isn't _good enough_ , you won't accept it, not at the price of all this death and ruin.

Your enemy _does_ target you, and if you don't try as hard as you could to escape - dying on the edge of a sword-blade isn't so bad, as dying goes. You have the _expectation_ of return, now.

***

_Is this the Valar's doing?_ you wonder sometimes, at odd moments. But surely if the Valar _could_ do this, the world would be a different place; if they had foresight this detailed and useful, surely they wouldn't have just let - everything - happen.

_Eru Ilúvatar_ -

But you can't even guess at what Eru might do or want. _Eru_ is not an explanation, on its own; or rather, in this context, the explanation for all things is barely more useful than the explanation for none.

You keep dying, your city keeps falling, your _people_ keep dying, over and over, and why would you have been given this if not to make it _stop_ -

You decide to try something different.

***

_Don't trust him_ , you say, _but we can watch him while he's here, and we could use his knowledge_.

You don't flinch, any more, at odd, irrational things - the smell of smoke; firelight glinting on a blade-edge - or not so noticeably as to make Galadriel _worry_ as she clearly did, for a while. You sleep less well than you used to, but if you have nightmares, there are several lifetimes' worth of causes, and not only a single span of time that you return to again and again.

You can bear this, if this is what it takes.

You treat Annatar coldly. You can't behave more badly towards him than mere suspicion would justify; but there will be no collaboration between you, this time.

And - he _is_ clever, he knows _exactly_ what to say, to make it seem as if the fault is all _yours_. You hear the whispers about your disdain towards him, the way you conceal your work, your unjustifiable mistrust - it's not as if you can _explain_ , and - if only people would _stop comparing you to your grandfather_ , it's not _like_ that -

It _does_ delay the war; though he doesn't linger as long in your city as you remember from lifetimes ago, finding less welcome and less that he can use. It gives Númenor more time to build ships and armies; it gives Gil-galad and Elrond more time to prepare.

It doesn't save Ost-in-Edhil or Eregion. You are getting _practiced_ at this, the best routes to send as many as you can fleeing through the Dwarrowdelf, the best words to motivate your allies and sway Númenor's rulers towards intervention, new designs for armour and weapons that the Gwaith-i-Mírdain call _revolutionary_ , making you feel like a fraud.

And - how much are you prepared to sacrifice? How many deaths are acceptable before you can call victory _winning_? You can't - if you could throw down Barad-dûr before its master ever comes to your city, you would, but not even Númenor is strong enough at the time when you first wake, not for a campaign in the heart of enemy territory, not when none of your allies know more than rumours of a shadow, not enough to stir them to war.

***

You are beginning to suspect that you _can't_ win.

Not that your enemy can't be _defeated_ , but that - there is no way to avoid war, and there is no way to prevent Ost-in-Edhil's fall, that you are _starting from a losing position_ , you haven't spent centuries building up armies and fortifications, you thought you were _safe_ , you thought the War was over and you could try to make beauty and healing, not spend more centuries throwing your work into sieges and battles.

And why _now_ , you can't help but think? Why is it Ost-in-Edhil you keep remembering with this more-than-foresight, why not - there was so much else you could have saved, tragedy that could have been averted; there are all the things you have spent centuries thinking you could have said to your family, you don't think they ever _wanted_ to become what they did and maybe if you'd had the right words at the right time -

You still don't _know_ what your enemy will do. If your foreknowledge is worth anything, it ought to help you _predict_ him, but you can't; he reacts too unpredictably, if you send troops _here_ then he might send them _there_ or _there_ , he _always_ seems to know more of your movements than he really should and you still can't work out _how_ or _why_.

You - thought you knew him, once. It feels like a long time ago; and you were wrong, anyway.

***

_Let him in_ , you say. _Who are we to turn him away, when he offers his help unbidden? And surely we can use his knowledge_.

You decide to get to know your enemy.

***

You have become an excellent liar. You can't just - _tell_ people how much you remember, if _memory_ is the right word, and so you have needed to lie to them again and again, find the best ways to fake your way past the normal progress of your work to explain where your ideas came from, pretend you don't know the stories your friends gradually confide to you over the centuries.

After a while, you - have _respect_ and _followers_ more than you have _friends_. You still have your alliance with Narvi, but you've - it's painful to admit, but you've learned all you can from him; you know how much _you_ could teach _him_ , you'd _love_ to tell him what you know and see where he takes it, but you could never explain how you learned the Dwarven secrets that your later work built upon, and Narvi would never trust an outsider who claimed to already know so much.

It's - worse, with the followers you _were_ friends with. You know them so well, and it's - difficult, when you already know the outcome of every love affair and squabble, when you can't share your work with them the way you used to.

Even Galadriel - you like her _better_ than you used to, your old admiration exchanged for sincere respect. But - even when you tell her the truth, you've changed so _much_ , and _she_ finds you - disconcerting, the awkward younger cousin she remembers exchanged for someone older and almost a stranger to her, really.

You - can't tell her anything, this time. You _know_ she'd tell you to throw Annatar out at once, if she knew - or some other, much less cautious reaction.

Maybe you should. But you've tried everything else, by now.

***

You work together with your enemy.

You have trouble remembering, sometimes, what you should and shouldn't know; but you have a great deal of practice at not revealing more than you must.

You follow on, logically, from your old research; you remind yourself to make mistakes, test blind alleys, not to guess too accurately too often.

You - can't tell whether he's suspicious, or how much.

It feels like lifetimes ago that you remember him standing over you, knife in hand. You still remember. You will never be able to _not_ remember. But you remember the lies he told you about _friendship_ , as well.

The old course of events is all too easy to fall back into. You're more distant than you were, you don't share your thoughts the way you once did; but Annatar is clearly making an _effort_ to win your trust, enough that he doesn't press you on your silences, redirects the conversation when he notices you becoming tense.

You still don't understand him at all, how the lies he tells you match his later actions - what does he _get_ from this? Why this elaborate pretense?

He didn't _know_ you were going to make anything as useful to him as the Rings.

You make the Rings again.

Things go much the same, save only that this time you are very clear that you must, at all costs, be killed rather than captured.

***

You work together with your enemy.

_It's not enough_ , you think, _I need to know what he'll do, why he's doing this_ -

You are so tired, of dying again and again, of your friends dying around you, of the endless round of work and war that seems to have consumed your life, the new Age that seems inexorably to become more and more like the last one -

You share more with him. If nothing else, maybe you _can_ learn from him, and take more scraps of knowledge to your next death.

And -

You _do_ learn from him. You surprise him with how much you already know; you think he _is_ suspicious, but there's nothing he can pin down to ask you about, not when _he_ has so many reasons to evade questions about his own past. But - what are a few added centuries of learning, to one of the Powers that made the world? And he _is_ that, no matter what else he became.

After so much repetition - after spending so much time with colleagues and students you _know_ are intelligent people, you _know_ are as talented in their fields as you are in yours, but who simply haven't had _time_ to make the discoveries you know they could -

It's difficult to hold yourself at a distance. It's more difficult than you expected, not to share more and more, to take your conclusions as far as they can go.

He stays longer, this time.

The Three are _amazing_ , by now, but even with Nenya shining like a star on Galadriel's finger, with Númenor's forces committed sooner and in greater strength - it's not _enough_.

You think you probably _can_ win the war, now; you are aware that you might see more, if you placed yourself in battle less often, if you hadn't become so used to the sword-blade (or the falling rubble, or the blow that crushes in your ribs, or - ) and then the shock of waking, unharmed, ready to try again and again.

Your enemy is not invincible; he has been and can be defeated. It's only -

How many deaths are you prepared to accept, for the sake of your victory?

What would make all of this _worth_ so much suffering and pain?

***

You can't really remember that first time, when you thought you were _friends_ with Annatar.

You know that you were - happy, then. But everything you feel and remember about that time is smudged over and distorted by your emotions since then: the humiliation of your own _stupidity_ , the knowledge of his deceit, those hours or days of pain - themselves so long ago, now - that stand like a burning bright line between the self who trusted Annatar and the person you are now.

Is it an old pattern, then, that you fall back into? Or something new?

What does it matter, if you share too much? You might lose more quickly, in this lifetime; but _he_ won't remember, and you can always try again.

You tell him what you know. When he asks - and he _does_ ask; you share too much with him that you shouldn't, couldn't possibly have known - you smile, and ask about _his_ past, what prompted his generosity in coming here, why a Maia so recently of Aman speaks Sindarin almost more readily than Quenya, and with such idiomatic fluency -

You talk about your work, instead. And -

It's been so _long_ since you worked together with someone as a real _equal_ , not just a student. You - _can_ work alone, of course, but it's so much more _interesting_ having someone to talk your ideas over with, someone who can _contribute_ as well as learn; someone who comes up with _new_ ideas -

It's - difficult not to respond, when you make the first Ring (an altogether different creation, now, intricate and beautiful far beyond anything you once imagined) and he smiles at you in real and sincere pleasure.

You smile back. Why not? None of this will ever have happened, eventually.

You share the designs for the Three with him. You work together so _well_.

He - stays longer.

You weren't expecting it.

He _stays_ , and you build the Three, and then make it Five, this time; you share Narya and Nenya and Vilya with your allies and slide emerald-set-in-mithril onto your finger, watch him wear bright yellow-diamond set into a band of gold on his own. He doesn't make the One, but you listen to the suggestions he makes during the design process, and - think you know, now, how he once achieved it.

What does he _get_ from all of this? Why would he keep _lying_?

Time passes. You live - longer, in one sense, than you ever have before.

You hear the rumours, read messages about Númenor's activities on the coasts: their ever-growing need for timber; the colonies they establish; the slow waning of the friendship their rulers once held for Gil-galad, their increasing hostility to any of the Eldar -

It's _Númenor_ that starts the war, this time.

Annatar leaves, his hand forced by the need to build and command his own armies, and Mordor and Númenor tear Eriador apart between them, destruction as bad as anything you have ever seen before.

When it's Ar-Pharazôn's troops that come to sack Ost-in-Edhil -

You laugh and laugh until you can hardly breathe.

***

What does it take to _win_?

What would make all of this _worthwhile_?

In lifetime after lifetime, you fail and die; you watch your people fail and die; you watch your city fall.

Perhaps, you think, you've been taking the wrong _message_ from it, all this time.

It's so _easy_ to let Annatar befriend you; he makes all the effort, if you give him the chance. You think of your own lies, to the people you were friends with, lifetimes ago; you think of the knowledge you can't explain, the past you can't tell anyone about. You think about loneliness.

You think about what you really want: not _victory_ , the word turned hollow in your mouth after so many pointless battles, but - _peace_. Safety. Your people's lives; the preservation of your city.

_Do you really want to know how I learned this?_ you say to Annatar. _It's a long explanation -_

And, at length:

_All you have to do_ , you say, _is promise to keep everyone safe -_

You don't _have_ to fight. You never did.

You can't win. But you can still get what you wanted. And no-one can say that _you_ don't know the cost.

All you have to do is _lose_.

You don't know if it's a _better_ world you make, in the end - gemstones glittering on Annatar's fingers; Númenor ruined and crushed; your people safe behind Ost-in-Edhil's unbreached walls -

_What have you done?_ asks Galadriel, horrified -

You forge the One together. And your enemy _does_ keep his promises, even if _safety_ isn't everything you could have hoped for, in the end.


End file.
